ApexSQL Doc: SQL Server Documentation Tool

Recall that the whole purpose of ApexSQL Doc is to "create" a documentation of one (or more) given SQL Server database(s). Keeping this in mind it isn't really surprising to find that the software is actually "just" a wizard. A wizard that allows you to customize on 66 pages the level of granularity of your documentation down to the finest detail you require. You can virtually customize each and every single aspect of the documentation to fit your needs. As it is certainly beyond the scope of this paper, to show and describe each page for each possible setting separately, I deliberately choose instead several pages which, in my humble opinion, illustrate the usefulness of the tool pretty good and highlight some of its quite remarkable features.

But first things first, let's have a look at the main application window:

As you can see on the left-hand side, there is a Treeview object.

This Treeview not only illustrates that ApexSQL Doc is SQL Server 2005 ready, but also what I already mentioned above. You can customize almost every aspect of the database(s) that is to be documented down to the level that you require.

In order not to blow up this paper in size more than is necessary and to avoid this nasty horizontal scrolling when you have a screen resolution of just 1024x768, I will walk through the following explanations showing only in that part of the screen marked in red (or parts thereof) in the screenshot below. By the way, the user won't ever lose control at which step in the documentation process he currently is, because the Treeview will be automatically adjusted and highlights that step.

As you can see, I've created several projects in which I've tried several different aspects of the software. Let's open the documentation project on the database I use for all ApexSQL software papers.

Due to the sheer amount of possible screenshots, I won't show you the typical SQL Server login screen and database selection screen. People familiar with SQL Server are familiar with such screens anyway. However, quite remarkable at the point of database selection, is the fact, that you can include more than one database from the same SQL Server instance to be included in just one documentation.